Protecting a business idea - Scrabulous under fire

Here’s a good example of a well established brand that is fighting to protect its intellectual property against start-ups that are exploiting new online opportunities…

The upstart business is Scrabulous, a hugely popular application on Facebook that allows friends to play a free Scrabble-like game online. Up to half a million people play the game every day, on Facebook and on the official Scrabulous website.

Hasbro, the makers of Scrabble and one of the world’s leading toy and games manufacturers, are suing the Calcutta-based founders of Scrabulous, claiming they are infringing its copyright and trademark.

This legal action has been brewing for a while and we can expect to see quite a lot of change in the next few weeks.

Just last night, the Scrabulous game was briefly withdrawn as a Facebook application. it then reappeared several hours later with a new name (Wordscraper), circular rather than square tiles and some new rules. Will this be enough to satisfy the owners of the orginal Scrabble?

My prediction is that the only winners in this are likely to be Hasbro’s lawyers.